Mexican moneyman's family complained of pellet gun attack

The college recommendation letter that District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis wrote for Edward Susumo Azano, the son of a Mexican billionaire under indictment for illegal campaign contributions, wasn’t the first time the Azano family had contact with her office.

In 2004, Dumanis’s office filed charges in Juvenile Court against a Coronado youth, then 15, who was accused of firing a single plastic pellet from an air gun and striking the Azano boy.

The incident occurred in October 2003 in the Coronado Cays, where the Azano family has two residences. Formal charges in Juvenile Court were filed six months later.

The father, a Mexican national, now stands accused in a federal probe of foreign money in local political campaigns, including one by Dumanis. Her ties to the family became a campaign issue but she was easily re-elected earlier this month.

In response to a reporter’s question about the Coronado case 10 years ago, a spokesman for Dumanis said that was the first she had heard of it.

The pellet gun case was the subject of a half-day of trial. The young Azano, then 12, testified, and his father was in attendance.

The case was later dismissed by the judge, who ruled the prosecution didn’t have enough proof. That decision came before the defense even put on any evidence of its own.

It was a minor case — two misdemeanor charges for assault with a deadly weapon and assault in which no one was injured — that occurred just over 14 months into Dumanis’s first term in office, long before she even contemplated a race for mayor.

The records show the case was weakened by inconsistencies in the story the younger Azano told Coronado police and what he testified to in court, as well as the statements of other witnesses who said the accused youth never even touched the pellet gun and was innocent.

The incident occurred on Oct. 7, 2003, just before 6 p.m. at a tennis and basketball area in the 1,100-home bayside community. Edward Azano was riding a motor scooter and told investigators he was beckoned over to the courts by some youths. When he approached them, he said, one fired a single pellet from the gun.

Edward Azano said it struck him on the side of the helmet that he was wearing on his head. According to the police report, he said the pellet struck him on the left side. He also said there were three youths at the courts and one of them beckoned him by saying to “Come here, I’m going to shoot you.”